Entrepreneurial firms and their sustainability in a VUCA world

Abstract

Entrepreneurship is a central theme of discussion, with 'entrepreneur' coined by Jean-Baptiste, implying one who undertook a new venture. This field has its genesis from the field of economics, sociology and economic history, agglomerating as an interplay between wealth creation, resource optimisation and economic development. It is interesting to posit 'do all entrepreneurial firms survive in a volatile, uncertain, complex and ambiguous (VUCA) world with a discussion on their sustainability?' We identified select papers published between 2000 and 2019 and entrepreneurial firms incepted between 2000 and 2015 but reeling under VUCA, deploying qualitative method for examining various dimensions of VUCA. We undertook a typical case of iTiffin, incepted in 2013. iTiffin has struggled to capitalise the market in VUCA times, undergoing sustainability perspectives. Similarly, start-ups posed with vulnerability often fail to steer the rough waters of the VUCA environment. We triangulated, reducing biases and concretised evidence to address the subject.